Saturday, 30 January 2010

Kids Can Press: "Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be"

Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be is a straight-ahead introduction to the fact of evolution, to its mechanisms, and to the misunderstandings that surround it. The book aims to explain how evolution works ??? and how we know for a fact that it happens. It is suitable for readers aged 8 ??? 13.There are many fine kids books about evolution, but this one is distinguished by its skeptical pedigree. While laying out the evidence for evolution, this book also takes a critical look at common objections to evolutionary theory. Those pseudoscientific notions (???Isn???t there a dinosaur still alive in Africa someplace? Doesn???t that mean evolution didn???t happen????) are major barriers to understanding for many people. Luckily, getting to the bottom of those sorts of questions is what skeptics do.

The writing is as clear as I can possibly make it ??? and then some. Nothing teaches you to strip out ambiguity and jargon like writing for kids.

the new book just out by Junior Skeptic columnist Daniel Loxton, this one goes out to that teacher who told Kaelin he couldn't do his science fair project on Darwin because the topic was "too difficult"